Fiber Optic Bandwidth is Closer Than You Think

By: John Shepler

If you’ve had your telecom line contracts for years, maybe decades, you may not be aware of all the connection options that have become available recently. Some have popped up only in the last few years. Don’t continue to assume that something like T1 lines are all that are available without taking another look. You may be surprised at what you find.

 

You Need More Bandwidth
Fiber optic bandwidth has been talked about for years at the wave of the future. When you look at the type of applications that are popular with both consumers and businesses, it becomes obvious quickly that nothing else will accommodate the bandwidths that are needed.

You’ve seen it coming. Static web pages have given way to embedded video clips. SD video has been supplanted by HD Video. Now that clamor is for 4K and, soon, 8K video streams.

How about software? Software used to come on tape reels, floppy disks and CD ROMs. Now software is downloaded. The old “packages” are on their way out, if not gone. They’re being replaced by apps that are acquired over the Internet. That takes a lot more than DSL or T1 bandwidth.

Downloadable apps may have a short lifespan, too. There is a mad dash for the “cloud” for both applications and storage. On-site data centers are emptying out. Massive cloud data centers are popping up as fast as they can be built. When you access everything through the cloud rather than over the LAN, your wide area network bandwidth requirements shoot up by orders of magnitude.

Why It’s Got to Be Fiber
The need for increasing levels of bandwidth have not been lost on service providers. In fact, any carrier that is still married to circuit switched architectures and copper connectivity is just marking time until it is no longer needed.

Ethernet over Copper has extended the life of the installed twisted pair copper plant by offering speeds of 10 Mbps to at least 50 Mbps and sometimes higher. DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 are doing the same for coaxial cable. Premises connectivity is likely the last bastion of copper. It only needs to stretch to the curb, where it connects to… fiber.

What about wireless? It looks like the world is now standardizing on 4G LTE and looking forward to 5G, as everything we do at the desk also needs to be done while mobile. Even so, capacity limitations dictated by the amount of room in the electromagnetic spectrum will keep wireless primarily as a mobile connection. Perhaps meshed WiFi and pico cells will again multiply the capacity of wireless… but it’s never going to be fiber.

An Avalanche of Fiber Now
The beauty of fiber is that it offers unlimited bandwidth as far as we can tell. Each strand might only support 10 Gbps with todays lasers, but DWDM creates dozens or more of those 10 Gbps channels on a single fiber strand. Why install a single hair-thin fiber when you can bundle 100 or more in a cable about the size of the familiar twisted pair bundles?

Of course multiple strand cables are the only way to go. For awhile it looked like way too much capacity had been installed during at the tech boom of the 90’s. Now those dark fiber strands are being lit up en-masse and more capacity is being installed nationwide.

Google has it right. The future… the near future… is fiber and Gigabit bandwidth is something we won’t be salivating over for long. Soon it will be 10 Gbps and then 100 Gbps. There is no end in sight.

It’s not just Google in selected cities or Verizon’s FiOS. Every incumbent telecom company and all the new competitive service providers are in a race to get to fiber as their standard connectivity for both home and business.

Goodbye SONET, Hello Ethernet
The incumbent telcos and the long line providers built their fiber networks with the SONET protocol, as it was the logical upgrade from TDM copper such as T1 and E1. All the new networks are being built around Carrier Ethernet and the older ones are converting rapidly.

Sometimes the most sensible thing to do is install Ethernet over SONET as an upgrade. When starting from scratch, native Ethernet is the protocol of choice. It’s unlikely we’ll return to a circuit switched world. It’s packet switching as far forward as we can see.

The beauty of Ethernet is that it is directly compatible with the local networks in every home and business, and all of the equipment that connects to them. Carrier Ethernet is designed to be highly scalable, with many more increments in bandwidth than were offered by SONET and fractional SONET services. You can pretty much pick the bandwidth you want, although standard LAN speeds of 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps are popular, with 10 Gbps more in demand every day.

Moreover, Ethernet services are fast and easy to scale. You can generally call your provider and get bandwidth upgrades immediately or within a few days. As long as the installed port for your WAN service can handle it, you can keep upgrading as needed with no change in premises equipment.

How to FInd the Fiber Services Quickly
You can try looking the old fashioned way, by looking in the phone directory for telecom carriers in your area. Or just run an online search. You’ll find some of them for sure, but might miss out on others that are new or not widely publicized.

It makes more sense to use a search engine that is dedicated to finding fiber optic bandwidth and nothing else. That’s the GeoQoute (™) system. How difficult is it to use? Trivially easy, in fact. You simply start by entering some basic contact information and the type of service you want. In a few minutes, the automated system will give you a list of options with budgetary pricing. If you like what you see, a complementary discussion with a product specialist can help you narrow down the choices and find out about limited time special offers that might be an even better deal.

Sound good? Do a fast search for fiber optic network services now and see what you may have been missing for years.

10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps Internet Upgrades

By: John Shepler

Are you feeling stymied by your company’s low Internet speeds? It’s to be expected. Today’s online applications are far more demanding than the static websites and text based email that were the norm when you got your first T1 line. Today, 10 Mbps can be considered entry level for most businesses. Demands for 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps are entirely reasonable. So, what’s the best way to upgrade?

Movin’ On Up
You can sometimes get away with incrementally increasing your bandwidth as needs grow slowly. Bonded T1 lines can give you 3 to 12 Mbps in 1.5 Mbps steps. You need to order all your lines from the same provider and there will be equipment changes every time you want to step up. Even so, this can be the best option in rural areas where there isn’t much service available.

A competing approach is to order Ethernet over Copper rather than T1. It’s available in most metro areas, although not so much beyond the city limits. EoC can give you higher bandwidth levels, 3 to 20 Mbps, at lower cost than bonded T1 solutions. It’s distance sensitive, so the closer you are to the office supplying your service, the higher your bandwidth.

The best option today is looking more and more like Ethernet over Fiber. Yes, fiber optic service used to be rarely found and very expensive. The legacy SONET fiber services still are pricey, although they’ve come down dramatically in recent years. Ethernet over Fiber is a newer approach that offers a number of advantages for business users.

What Ethernet over FIber Offers
Ethernet over FIber (EoF) is pretty much like it sounds. It uses the same Ethernet protocol that runs on your company LAN, but adds some features that make it suitable for telecom carrier use. You’ll also hear it called Carrier Ethernet or Metro Ethernet. This is currently a metropolitan service. There isn’t much fiber in the boonies, although more is being installed all the time to boost the capability of cellular towers.

Because it’s Ethernet, EoF is easy to connect to your network. Your handoff from the service provider is a fiber or copper Ethernet connection. Plug it into your edge router and you’re in business

Ethernet over Fiber was designed to be highly scalable. That means upgrades are very easy and probably don’t need equipment changes. Compare that to legacy services that always required the carrier to swap out termination equipment and often took weeks and months to complete. With EoF, you make a phone call and your speed will be increased in a matter of hours or days. The latest offerings let your make changes on-demand. You can increase or decrease your bandwidth right from your computer.

How about bandwidth?
Ethernet over Fiber typically starts at 10 Mbps and goes up to 10 Gbps or more. Popular speeds mirror the standard Ethernet LAN speeds of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1000 Mbps. Actually, you can get many increments in-between these standards. If you like, start off at 10 Mbps and then upgrade to 20 or 30 Mbps and eventually move on up to 100 Mbps or more.

The one consideration that makes this easy is the port speed you install. That the speed of the connection to the provider’s equipment. You’ll want at least a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet connection to provide 10 to 100 Mbps. If you expect to go into the hundreds of Mbps, you’ll want at least a Gigabit Ethernet port. Want more than 1 Gbps? Get a 10 Gbps port installed initially so you won’t need equipment changes from running out of port speed.

The Pleasant Cost Surprise
Many traditional and new carriers are now offering Ethernet over Fiber, since it has become so popular. This makes for a highly competitive marketplace and that’s great for you as a buyer. EoF pricing is far more attractive per Mbps than bonded T1, DS3 (T3), or any of the SONET (OC-3, OC-12, OC-48) services. You can easily find yourself paying half or less than you would with other telecom services. You retain highly reliable service with low latency, jitter and packet loss.

Does this sound like just the business Internet access you need now? Check out prices and available of Ethernet over Fiber bandwidth options for your business location now.

DS3 Speeds Without DS3 Prices

Companies needing large amount of bandwidth for ecommerce, video transport, medical records transfer, or dedicated Internet access have traditionally turned to DS3 connections to get speeds much higher than T1 lines can provide. But now there’s an alternative that can give you DS3 speeds without paying DS3 prices.

What’s new in the world of telecommunications services is Metro Ethernet and Carrier Ethernet. These terms refer to regional and long haul high bandwidth transport services based on the Ethernet protocol. What you get when you order an Ethernet WAN connection is a telecom service that connects your LAN to another business location, to a meshed network of multiple locations, or a dedicated high speed connection to the Internet.

Ethernet services come in a variety of speeds that include the standard 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, and 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet. In some locations you can also get 10 GigE or 10,000 Mbps. In addition, Ethernet services are often scalable so that you can order 5 Mbps and then upgrade to 10, 15, 25 or 50 Mbps with just a phone call to your carrier.

Ethernet pricing is often much lower per Mbps than DS3, OC3 or even T1 lines. For speeds above about 50 Mbps you’ll need a fiber optic connection. But once installed, that fiber service can deliver almost unlimited bandwidth to support your business as it grows. Within major metropolitan areas, you may also be able to get EoC or Ethernet over Copper service. It uses the same twisted pair copper telco bundles that you already have connected in the back room. With a carrier provided EoC router, you’ll be able to get line speeds of up to 45 Mbps near carrier offices. Lower speeds are available up to several miles away.

You can, indeed, get DS3 speeds without having to pay DS3 pricing. But you may be able to get DS3 at much lower costs that you are paying now. The business bandwidth field has become more competitive lately and prices have dropped across the board. So, even if you want to keep the DS3 service you have now, why not pay less every month? If you prefer to switch to Ethernet or would like to compare prices between the two services, then take a minute and get online quotes for DS3 and Ethernet connections for your business location. I’ll bet you can save at least something on your next line lease.